


Haikus for Haku

by SharkSinger



Category: Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi | Spirited Away
Genre: Canon Universe, Childhood Friends, F/M, Friendship/Love, Heartbreak, Long-Distance Friendship, Long-Distance Relationship, Love Letters, Love Poems, Poetry, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, Spirit World, Spirits, True Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:07:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22026814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharkSinger/pseuds/SharkSinger
Summary: After leaving the spirit world, Chihiro adjusts to life back with the humans. She never forgot any of her friends she made at the bath house, nor Haku's promise that they would one day see each other again. As she grows and goes through the trials and tribulations of life, her letters she left as prayers to the river spirit chronicle the moments of growing up, falling in love, and remembering what taught her to believe and have strength.
Relationships: Haku | Nigihayami Kohakunushi/Ogino Chihiro, Kaonashi/Ogino Chihiro, Ogino Chihiro/Rin
Kudos: 49





	1. Adolescence

> "I made friends today,  
> But that phrase feels stranger now  
> I dream of pigpens." 

Chihiro sat up, gasping. Her fingers worried at the hair band that was around her wrist, trying to think of what Zeniba had said. "So that I'll remember them." She said aloud, and picked up her pen, feeling comforted with the cobwebs of her nightmare chased away. On the back of the card from the flowers from when she moved, she scribbled the poem, and wondered if Haku thought of her. It was going to be the end of spring soon, and the flowers from the bath house gardens would be shedding their petals, blanketing the spot where she had cried for the human world in his arms.

School felt easy, most days, and her cleaning duties were the easiest part of it. Chihiro had gotten the floors done in five minutes her first day, rolling her sleeves up and whizzing back and forth across the room just as she had learned.

Her friends thought it was funny that she spent so much time at temples, leaving offerings for the spirits. It was a lifelong duty she had sworn to do once she got out of the tunnel, to pay back the spirits for her parent's actions, and she did it every day without fail. Maybe somewhere Haku was eating the berries she'd picked at the start of summer, just barely ripe enough to be considered ready.

\----

> "River mud in my nails,  
> I dug for your presence, yet  
> It is rinsed away." 

The flyer talked about tearing down the now condemned apartments, and how volunteers were going to excavate the river and let it flow through town again. Though her friends didn't understand why she was so insistent on spending the day in mud, they followed along with it, spending the day spraying each other with hose water and making runs to the store for cold drinks.

It seemed as good a paper as any to write on, and Chihiro thought Haku might like knowing that his river was being restored. Half of her had expected him to come bursting through the rush of water that they'd released, twisting and triumphant, but it didn't happen. Blinking, she could almost see a pink shoe being washed away.

\----

> "Festival lanterns  
> Alight in the sky, floating  
> I dance through the night." 

The end of middle school had finally come, and they chattered excitedly about which high schools they would attend. "No fair, Chihiro, I can't believe you got accepted there!" "Well, maybe if you'd studied with me you could have gone too!"

They bought tokens to bless their new beginning, as Chihiro's penitent nature had rubbed off on them, and prayed before running off to find a yakisoba stand. On a spare graduation invitation, she wrote, before putting it with the rest of the ema hanging at the shrine.

A sudden gust of wind rose, whipping her kimono with it, spiraling the leaves from the ground high in the air. She raised her hands in the sky with them, and for a moment, felt like she could fly.

\----

> "A rose petal falls,  
> As if to wipe free my tears  
> Which fall towards you." 

The first day of high school, and she almost got into a fight. While visiting club rooms, she listened to the leader of the occult club for less than a minute before interrupting. "That's not how spirits look at all!"

"How would you know? I've spent the last four years researching it!" Everyone was whispering as Chihiro confronted the president of the club, confidence in her voice. "Why would they? Do you honestly think the radish spirit would be a skinny, serene court lady? It doesn't match up!" After all, the radish spirit and Chihiro had a history, one she couldn't share with anyone.

The debate didn't last, and Chihiro found herself alone in the hallway, picking at the shimmering purple band in her hair. She ran for the river, kneeling beside it and crying. The flowers she had worked so hard to plant were starting to bloom. Reaching into her bag, she rummaged until she found the edge of her schedule, and she wrote on it, sending it down the current when she was done.


	2. Teenagehood

> "Makeup and coffee  
>  Feeling elegant as I  
>  Walk the street, laughing."

It was the first time a boy had ever asked her on a date, and Chihiro had been nervous as she tried to apply lipstick and blush with inexperienced hands. Her saving grace was her mother, who sat and showed her subtlety with shimmering powder and sticky lip gloss.

"Don't grow up on me too fast, Chihiro. You don't want to look like you're going to a karaoke bar if he's just asked you to see the cherry blossoms with him."

Would anyone have showed her how to straighten her part or blend powder down her neck at the bath house? Chihiro smiled, thinking of Rin, with her shiny pink lipstick and crafty smile. She could hear it now. "That loser? Please. I'm not wasting cosmetics on a drag like that. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get ahold of them?"

Other guys looked over their shoulders as the young couple walked arm in arm, perhaps jealous of their happiness. She watched younger girls who stared with open longing, dreaming of the day when they would get bigger and have a boy buy them cold drinks on a spring day.

He had kissed her cheek when he walked her home. Blushing, Chihiro wrote on the back of a receipt for the iced coffee her date had bought her, wondering if Haku saw the petals of the cherry blossom floating down his river.

\------

> "The ocean waves froth  
>  My feet skip, as I wonder  
>  If you're with me now."

"Chihiro! Hey! You know, your dad here just found out there's a place over here where the Kohaku river lets out into the ocean. Pretty cool, eh? We aren't so far from home after all!"

She was writing on a sunscreen stained piece of paper, eyes closed to enjoy the breeze, wondering if that meant his spirit ever came to the ocean with it.

It had been six years since being back in the human world to this day, and like every year, she was chased by memories of tunnels and meadows. Trying to get her mind off of it was difficult, so she got up to walk, remembering how her dad had said there was an old cave in the cliffs. That was when she saw them, scattered among the rocks.

"They look like little houses."

"Mommy! Daddy!" Chihiro yelled, finally seeing them in the distance. She almost started crying with relief, running as fast as she could in the shifting sand. Grabbing her mother, she tried not to cry, making them both stumble a little.

"Chihiro, don't cling like that, you'll make me trip!" Her mother scolded. Chihiro sniffled and sat down, imagining a dragon coming to her side in the waves.

\------

> "The shrine flows with peace  
>  But my heart is thunderous  
>  As I learn to dance."

Not many were surprised when Chihiro had taken the position to be a shrine maiden. It was hard, balancing school and her duties, but the payoff was worth it. In the gardens of the shrine, she found peace learning the rituals and ways of the miko.

"No, I think it's cool, really! You look amazing all dressed up like that!" The same boy who had taken her to see cherry blossoms was still in her life, quietly supportive. Often, her friends would come to see her, eager to have their fortune told or see her work on talismans. It was almost the end of high school, and everyone was eager to spend time with each other before college.

Most days, the spirit world felt just barely out of sight, like she would lift a veil one day and there would be Zeniba, welcoming her in for tea. It was especially prevalent when Chihiro performed the Kaguya dance for the first time, almost smelling herbal waters pouring hot baths mixed with the taste of roasted newts.

For the first time, she wrote on a proper ema, hanging it with the rest and bowing. Tears threatened to spill as she wondered when, if ever, these prayers would be answered. Had he forgotten her?


	3. Womanhood

> "I couldn't see you  
>  My heart heavy with goodbyes  
>  As I board the train"

It was hard not to cry when bidding farewell. Harder still to watch her parents wave until she couldn't see them anymore. They were older now, with grey hairs and wrinkles where there had never been any before. Choosing to leave for university was the hardest thing Chihiro had done, knowing she would be leaving behind everything, perhaps even the river.

"Hey! You're Chihiro, right? The shrine maiden! We're going to the same school!"

Perhaps new friends wouldn't be so terrible. The two girls spent hours cheering each other up, playing games and swapping stories.

"Well, I don't blame you. I wouldn't have stayed home just to date a guy who's training to take over a grocery, either. So when's the last time you've been on a long train ride like this? I used to go every month to go to Tokyo!"

The only other time she'd ridden a train was… with Kaonashi. Bo and Yu-bird were there, too, and they'd been going to Swamp Bottom. The ride was very different than this one. With a start, Chihiro realized the river was finally twisting out of sight, and she pressed her face to the glass before pulling out her train ticket to write. 

\------

> "Sake on my tongue  
>  Karaoke in my ears  
>  My lipstick smudges."

Karaoke bars were always so loud, and this one was no exception. Chihiro's ears were ringing, but she kept up with the rest of her friends, cheering and laughing as they alternated who went onstage. Someone had been buying rounds, and her vision was getting dangerously unsteady. The lights spun so much she hadn't noticed at first.

Perhaps it was time to go home, before it went too far.

It was a long walk to get back to her apartment, and the air was starting to chill. Chihiro licked her lips, touching her fingertips to the edges of her lipstick to try and wipe at where it had smeared on the rim of her glass.

She paused at the shrine she had transferred to, stumbling through the archway and eventually making her way to bow before the kami. A note written haphazardly on a bar napkin fluttered from her fingertips, a blurred kiss of rouge on the corner.

~~~

> "I long for the smell  
>  Of rhododendron, it seems  
>  Azaleas are far away."

She hated being in an office all day with every fiber of her being. The company was quick to hire someone so good with negotiating and with such a long history of piety. But the windows only looked over to streets and parking lots, an endless sea of cars and grey buildings.

The gardens she so rarely had the chance to explore at the bathhouse called to her in the dreams she had at night, beckoning to Chihiro's mind. Come back, Chihiro. We go so many more places than the farm. You could wander forever, never see florescent lights again.

The dreams both terrified and intrigued her. It wouldn't be lying to say she hated her life in the city, hated the cramped apartment and daily commute that made her too exhausted for any other semblance of thought. Escape sounded far too appealing.

"Heading out so soon, Miss Ogino?" Her boss was leaning heavily against the desk of the secretary, chatting loudly.

"I must go make my offerings at temple. Forgive me, my last year of training is upon me." Bowing, she clenched the words written on office letterhead in her fist.

"That's my girl! See, Mei, maybe if you had something like that to motivate you to get your work done sooner…"

~~~

> "Today I have pledged  
>  Myself, on our wedding day  
>  River spirit bride."

It was an old, traditional ceremony, only observed by shamans and elders. The memories of the spirit world often came to her in waves, fragmented in dreams or sometimes in sharp clarity when she gazed at familiar objects, easily faded again by reality. But right now, it was overwhelming. They all stood out to her with crystal clarity, brought to life with a roar by the energy in the temple. It was why she had always been drawn to worship - because without it, her friends would fade away and be lost entirely.

"And who do you feel, Chihiro? Who possesses you?"

Her throat with thick and heavy, desperately trying to narrow down the rush of spirits, familiar and unfamiliar, who seemed to reach for her mind. Right when she was sure she couldn't take it anymore, she saw him.

"Haku?" It wasn't the same boy she had been writing all these years. This was a man, long black hair floating like a cloud around him and lean muscles rippling as he pulled her close. The white and blue kimono he wore enveloped her body, heavy with the fragrance of water lilies. His face was as refined as a masterful piece of calligraphy, but right now it was broken in a wide, radiant smile.

"I remember, Chihiro! I haven't forgotten!" He cried, brushing hair from her face, "You freed me, and now you've given me back my home. Your prayers gave me the strength to return! I said we'd meet again, and now I'll always be by your side!" She lifted her head to look him in the eyes, feeling very suddenly dizzy, pulled from her trance. 

The vision faded as she fainted, calling his name over and over, not wanting to lose him yet again. When her eyes finally opened again, she was greeted by a priestess who started helping her into an intricate wedding dress.

"You're to be the first shrine maiden in a very long time to be chosen to be married to the Nigihayami Kohakunushi. You cried his name so loudly the walls shook." The much older woman was smiling, oblivious to Chihiro's shock. "It's not going to be easy, you know, but you're the most devoted maiden I've known in years. You'll fix it all right up!"

And so she toasted at a shrine that had for a long time been edging neglect, one she had sometimes visited in her youth, curious and sad as to why there had never been priests around to keep it running. Wind brushed Chihiro's face and rustled the various folds of her raiments when she stepped away, the barest flutter of dragon fur warm against her skin.

She didn't need to write anything. The words were carved into her heart, bared completely to the river spirit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ceremony described is a very old Shinto tradition. When a miko, or shrine maiden, is ready to become a shaman after years of training, they perform a special ritual. The miko is said to be possessed by a spirit during this, an indication of who she will serve for the rest of her life. They are summoned to the shrine of the spirit who came to them to be wedded to it, thus beginning a life of devotion as the kami's shaman.
> 
> In Chihiro's case, the obvious choice here was Kohaku, but as he had spent so long away from home, it would seem his shrine has fallen a bit into disrepair - both from having his name stolen, his river bricked up, and his strength faded from being lost for so long. Worshippers are hard to come by for a temple without a spirit to give it life.


End file.
